


Infinite (What Could Have Been)

by BeLiEVeRiNrAnDOmCApiTaliZatiOn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s08e19 Taxi Driver, M/M, Purgatory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-09 01:18:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeLiEVeRiNrAnDOmCApiTaliZatiOn/pseuds/BeLiEVeRiNrAnDOmCApiTaliZatiOn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They – he and Benny – they could have been infinite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infinite (What Could Have Been)

**Author's Note:**

> Insert to the end of 8.19, "Taxi Driver," during Dean and Benny's goodbye scene.

Dean hates this. Hates sending Benny back in to that Hell hole. The tears burn hot in the back of the throat, and, God, he _hates_ it. He feels stupid, crying about this like a little girl, but there’s something so wrong, so _wrong_ that he left Benny hanging and the next time he saw him, it was to ask him to die.

“You come back,” he says. “You come back, we find a place for you.”

He knows what he sees in Benny’s face. He’s giving up. He’s not coming back. Dean may be saying goodbye like a little girl, but Benny’s saying goodbye like himself. For good.

So Dean says it again, except it comes out more like a question. “You come back.”

And Benny laughs and promises things he does not mean.

“You can stay with us.” Dean doubts Sammy would go for it, and there’d be endless complications – hunters working with a vamp – but it flies from his mouth anyway. The idea has gotten into his head and now he can’t stop. “You’ll stay with us. Like a brother. We’ll all help each other and, I mean, we could always use the extra manpower ever since we lost Cas and Bobby. You can come on the road and we can smuggle you blood bags every once in a while with our badges and I’ll even let you ride shotgun sometimes, I promise. And we, me and you, we could ...” And then he’s trailing off because Benny’s looking at him with these big, sad eyes.

“What could we do, Dean?” he asks softly.

That’s when Dean grabs him and kisses him, because, God fucking damn it, what else can he do? The things they did in Purgatory – You did what you had to do, Sam had said, and, fuck, he hadn’t known the half of it – he had meant them. The first time, when he and Benny, high off of adrenaline, had ground into each other and groaned out profanities, it hadn’t been just because Dean had needed a good, hard fuck. It had been because Benny was ... _Benny_. He was candid and reliable and all of these things that nobody else – Not Sam, not John, most definitely not Cas – had been to Dean. He had been perfect, in his own sort of monster-y way, pulling Dean from himself and stitching him up with tender hands even as he tore him apart and made him come undone on the forest floor. It had been simple. Benny and Dean. It had come so easily, and Dean was so _done_ with things being hard, just wanted Benny next to him again, fangs and all, because that was something that had felt _right_.

Benny leans their foreheads together and stares into Dean’s eyes. “You know it’s not that simple anymore, boy-o.”

Dean’s breath comes out like a sob and he clutches onto that old blue coat and inhales Benny’s scent, something strong and briny, like seawater.

“It could be,” he says, even though he knows it's a lie. “We could be.”

Benny shakes his head, and Dean feels like a child. “No, it couldn’t, brother. We couldn’t. You and yer Sam, you’ve got these trials to complete, all this Work-Of-God crap. I’ve got every vamp in the country gunnin’ for my treasonous hide. And yer angel’s got himself in trouble again.”

Oh, shit, and it’s back to Cas. Benny knew, of _course_ Benny knew, about Cas and Dean, all these weird-ass feelings between them that the hunter really couldn’t begin to make heads or tails of. So much betrayal and regret, but still somehow family, in the twisted Winchester way. Benny hadn’t touched him after they found Cas in Purgatory. Said he was a monster, but not an asshole. He didn’t fuck around when the “Other Man” was right there. Dean had and hadn’t understood, knew he and Cas were on some weird, complicated route to being abso-fucking-lutely emotionally entangled, but they weren’t there yet, and maybe it would never happen, because who knew what the fuck was up with that angel right now and all Dean wanted was for ... was for ...

“Benny, I want you to come home.”

The vampire kisses him, soft. “You have a big heart, Dean Winchester. But it is not my home.”

Dean shatters.

He weeps and Benny holds him, just for once not mocking him. He hushes him and hums "Dust in the Wind" and that just makes Dean sob harder, burrowing his arms under the vamp’s jacket to wrap around his middle and _hold_ him, hold him like it’s the last time because it _is_ , and Dean knows, knows there’s no changing that because he and Benny happened and now they’re over, _over_.

He chokes out his name. “Benny ...”

“Yes, Dean?”

And he surges up again to cover the vamp’s mouth with his own, and breathes him in, _consumes_ him, tries to fill himself up with _Benny Benny Benny Benny fucking Lafitte._ It’s messy and rough and wet and they’re both crying. Dean forgets to breathe. That’s okay, though, because breathing is stupid when you’re saying goodbye to one of the best things in your life.

He would’ve stayed like that, entangled with the vampire, but Benny pulls their faces apart and whispers his name.

“Dean.”

“Y-yeah?”

He steps back and holds the hunter away when he tries to follow. He tilts his head towards the Impala, where a knife lies in the back seat.

“Do it now.”

Dean’s numb when he picks up the blade. He looks at Benny. Benny looks back.

The vampire clears his throat. “It was a pleasure,” he says. “Dean Winchester.”

The hunter has his arms around him. Then they step apart and Benny whispers small encouragements, telling Dean to hurry up, to do it, do it, get it over with, do it, you wimp. Dean breathes deep and looks at Benny. Benny Lafitte, vampire. Benny Lafitte, Purgatory survivor. Benny Lafitte, monster. But also Benny Lafitte, lover, friend, rescuer, confidante, ally, protector, partner, _friend, friend, friend._

They – he and Benny – they could have been _infinite_.

A goodbye ghosts over Dean’s lips. Then he swings.


End file.
